It was clear that Miss Peabody was enjoying herself. As an audience we were almost forgotten. Miss Peabody was well away in the past.
“Then came Arabella. Plain girl. Face like a scone. She married all right though, even if she were the plainest of the family. Professor at Cambridge. Quite an old man. Must have been sixty if he was a day. He gave a series of lectures here–on the wonders of Modern Chemistry, I think it was. I went to ’em. He mumbled 5 I remember. Had a beard. Couldn’t hear much of what he said.
Arabella used to stay behind and ask questions.
She wasn’t a chicken herself. Must have been getting on for forty. Ah, well, they’re both dead now. Quite a happy marriage it was. There’s something to be said for marrying a plain woman–you know the worst at once and she’s not so likely to be flighty. Then there was Agnes. She was the youngest–the pretty one. Rather gay we used to think her. Almost fast! Odd, you’d think if any of them had married it would have been Agnes, but she didn’t. She died not long after the war.” Poirot murmured: “You said that Mr. Thomas’s marriage was rather unexpected.” Again Miss Peabody produced that rich, throaty chuckle.
“Unexpected? I should say it was! Made a nine days’ scandal. You’d never have thought it of him–such a quiet, timid, retiring man and devoted to his sisters.” She paused a minute.
“Remember a case that made rather a stir in the late nineties? Mrs. Varley? Supposed to have poisoned her husband with arsenic.
Good-looking woman. Made a big to-do, that case. She was acquitted. Well, Thomas Arundell quite lost his head. Used to get all the papers and read about the case and cut out the photographs of Mrs. Varley. And would you believe it, when the trial was over, off he went to London and asked her to marry him? Thomas! Quiet, stay-at-home Thomas! Never can tell with men, can you?
They’re always liable to break out.” “And what happened?” “Oh, she married him all right.” “It was a great shock to his sisters?” “I should think so! They wouldn’t receive her. I don’t know that I blame them, all things considered. Thomas was mortally offended.
He went off to live in the Channel Islands and nobody heard any more of him.
Don’t know whether his wife poisoned her first husband. She didn’t poison Thomas.
He survived her by three years. There were two children, boy and girl. Good-looking pair–took after their mother.” “I suppose they came here to their aunt a good deal?” “Not till after their parents died. They j were at school and almost grown-up by then.
They used to come for holidays. Emily was alone in the world then and they and Bella Biggs were the only kith and kin she had.” “Biggs?” “Arabella’s daughter. Dull girl–some years older than Theresa. Made a fool of herself, though. Married some foreigner who was over at the University. A Greek doctor.
Dreadful-looking man–got rather a charming manner, though, I must admit. Well, I don’t suppose poor Bella had many chances.
Spent her time helping her father or holding wool for her mother. This fellow was exotic.
It appealed to her.” “Has it been a happy marriage?” Miss Peabody snapped out: “I wouldn’t like to say for certain about any marriage! They seem quite happy. Two rather yellow-looking children. They live in Smyrna.” “But they are now in England, are they not?” “Yes, they came over in March. I rather fancy they’ll be going back soon.” “Was Miss Emily Arundell fond of her niece?” “Fond of Bella? Oh, quite. She’s a dull woman–wrapped up in her children and that sort of thing.” “Did she approve of the husband?” Miss Peabody chuckled.
“She didn’t approve of him, but I think she rather liked the rascal. He’s got brains, you know. If you ask me, he was jockeying her along very nicely. Got a nose for money, that man.” Poirot coughed.
“I understand Miss Arundell died a rich woman?” he murmured.
Miss Peabody settled herself more comfortably in her chair.
“Yes, that’s what made all the pother! Nobody dreamed she was quite as well off as she was. How it came about was this way.